


Unplanned Parenthood

by skuldchan



Series: 極神主夫譜：The Divine Art of the Househusband [3]
Category: HIStory3 - 圈套 | HIStory3: Trapped
Genre: Domesticity, Fluff and Humor, Jack the Mercenary Househusband, M/M, Mercenary Househusband Problem-Solving Hijinks, Podfic Available, Post-Canon, accidental pet acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 17:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuldchan/pseuds/skuldchan
Summary: Zhao Zi receives an unusual and urgent phone call from Jack and has to rush home, leaving the rest of Unit Three perplexed.





	Unplanned Parenthood

It was after the morning briefing when everyone had just settled back at their desks that Zhao Zi’s cell phone rang, the sound puncturing the beginnings of muted activity. Those who knew him well recognized it as his Jack-ringtone. Those who knew him even better recognized it as the opening theme of that ice skating anime that he had been obsessed with a couple of years ago. But everybody knew that it was unusual for Zhao Zi to actually receive a phone call from his partner, when they usually LINE’d each other instead. Whatever it was must be urgent, if texting and voice messages wouldn’t suffice. 

His colleagues' fingers slipped off their keyboards, and they cocked their heads and strained their ears with interest. 

“You what? You let her in our house?” Zhao Zi’s exclamation echoed across the entire office. He leapt to his feet, sending his chair skittering across the floor. 

It rolled into the back of Meng Shao Fei, who hardly noticed the impact, focused as he was on appearing to be absorbed with his emails, and seeming not at all curious about the conversation happening a few feet away from him. 

“She’s in bed?!" Zhao Zi cried. "Why did you let her in our bed?”

Several pairs of eyebrows rose in synchrony across the third unit of the Criminal Investigation Division.

“She’s in labor?”

Yu Qi glanced over at Ah-Jun, who had the look of a large animal suddenly caught in the headlights of a speeding vehicle. Even Meng Shao Fei’s mouth had opened with surprise.

“How come you couldn’t tell?” Then Zhao Zi paused, as Jack said something indistinct over the line that no one could make out even through the hush that had settled over Unit Three. “Well, I couldn’t tell either. I guess that’s why we called her Li’l Chubs.” Another pause. “How am I supposed to know anything about reproduction if you don’t?”

Yu Qi turned to Shao Fei, the senior officer that had taught her the most over the years. Surely, he would know what was happening. Zhao Zi’s boyfriend, Jack, had been Tang Yi's personal enforcer in the Xing Tian Group. Was this some leftover mafia thing? And if it were, was it police business? 

Shao Fei caught her eye and then shrugged. He hadn’t the foggiest clue either. But if this was a mafia thing, and Jack had called Zhao Zi, technically it was kind of police business already. So nothing to worry about, right?

“Why is she at our place anyway? Doesn’t she usually sleep with Old Grandpa Fu?” A few more seconds passed as Zhao Zi nodded and seemed to calm down. “Yeah, you’re right. …Okay, okay. I’m coming home right now.”

Then Zhao Zi shoved his phone in his pocket and turned to Shao Fei, without registering that everyone in the room had dropped all pretense and was just staring at him. 

“Sorry, I’ve got to go,” he said, and turned to leave. 

“Wait!” Shao Fei called out to him, but by the time he got to his feet Zhao Zi had already made it down the hall. “What’s going on?”

“I think I’m going to be a father!” Zhao Zi’s shouted reply echoed off the walls before the automatic door slid shut behind him.

There was a moment of silence before Unit Three erupted in a chorus of disbelief that reverberated right up to the rafters.

* * *

"Jack!" Zhao Zi shouted as he approached the house with a bundle of shopping, "I bought a bunch of—"

Jack was waiting for him in the front garden. "Shh!" he hissed, raising a finger to his lips. 

Zhao Zi lowered his voice immediately, even though they were still outside. 

"I got the towels you wanted, and the heating pad."

Jack smiled at his boyfriend. Despite the air of cluelessness and naivete that Zhao Zi exuded, he was surprisingly dependable in an emergency. 

They went inside together, shedding their shoes and putting on their slippers, trying to move soundlessly, Jack succeeding better at it than his boyfriend. He relieved Zhao Zi of the towels, and they tiptoed upstairs, pausing in the doorway to their shared bedroom. 

Wedged between their pillows and atop a pile of fabric that looked suspiciously like their pajamas, curled a large calico cat, mostly white with varied splotches of black and ginger around her back, muzzle, and ears. This was the neighborhood stray that Zhao Zi had playfully nicknamed Li'l Chubs when they had first encountered her begging for food on their doorstep a month ago—she was adorably chubby and she loved to eat. 

Now Jack understood precisely why the cat was so rotund. It wasn't that every house on the block was feeding her, it was because lying next to her was a squealing, wet, miniature kitten, newly birthed. It rolled in the makeshift nest of blankets, pajamas, and pillows, blind and helpless, writhing weakly and emitting a noise not entirely unlike a child's bathtime squeaky toy. 

And of all the places in the neighborhood that Li'l Chubs could pick to give birth, she had somehow decided to sneak into their house and settle on their bed for her delivery. Their bed! 

Zhao Zi broke into a wide grin, seeing past the amniotic fluid and placental blood staining their bedclothes. Jack’s fingers twitched. The bedsheet was probably already a lost cause, and their pajamas would be too, if he didn't do something soon to save them.

"This is the wackiest thing I've ever seen," Zhao Zi whispered wondrously, as he leant into the room and peered at the cat. 

A fond smile crept across Jack's lips. Here was the miracle of life—well, cat life—happening right in front of them, and Zhao Zi's word for it? _Wacky._

"Do you think she’ll let us in?" 

Jack shrugged. Everything he knew about cat pregnancy he had just learned from the internet fifteen minutes ago. "Sure," he said, having nothing better to go off of than the fact that they had been feeding her consistently and she had chosen them out of every other house on the block. She had picked them, even over Old Grandpa Fu, where she reportedly spent most nights.

Zhao Zi approached the bed slowly, sliding his socked feet along the smooth floors, careful not to make any sudden movements. Li'l Chubs swiveled an ear toward him, but was otherwise occupied with grooming her kitten. Just as he was about to perch on the very edge of the bed, she rose and emitted an ear-splitting yowl, startling him so badly that he stumbled backward. 

Jack stepped forward and steadied Zhao Zi before his backside could crash awkwardly onto the floor. Zhao Zi smiled up at him in thanks, and they lingered like that for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, with Jack's arms around his boyfriend and Zhao Zi clutching his shoulders. 

Then Lil’ Chubs let out a startled yelp and the entirety of her small body tensed with the force of her contractions. She rose onto her feet, circling in short steps, mewling with discomfort.

Seeing their opportunity to save their bed, Jack and Zhao Zi sprang forward in tandem, armed with the freshly purchased towels. They slipped them beneath the stray’s paws, and picked up the thoroughly licked kitten before replacing it atop its new cradle of soft terry cloth. Then they retreated to the foot of the bed as quickly as they had descended upon it. 

The cat lifted her tail, and Jack could see a kitten head emerging. Li'l Chubs flopped down and lifted her leg, as her body heaved again. The second newborn kitten slid free, placenta and all, and its mother immediately began licking it.

Jack and Zhao Zi heaved a sigh of relief, while the towels absorbed the blood.

"How many do you think are in there?" Zhao Zi wondered aloud. 

"Beats me," Jack replied, watching Li'l Chubs with great curiosity as she chewed away the umbilical cord and then moved right along to chowing down on the placenta. It had always struck him as weird that mammals grew miniature versions of themselves in a special compartment of their bodies. Wacky, even. 

"Well," he said, "we're gonna have to come up with a new name for her now."

Zhao Zi laughed. "Yeah, I don't think she's gonna be so chubby after this."

* * *

Jack made his way upstairs again, laden with a large cardboard box lined with the heating pad and even more towels.

He and Zhao Zi transferred over the four mewling kittens that Li’l Chubs had just given birth to and let their mother follow them in. 

Jack and Li'l Chubs eyed each other warily as she flopped on her side and the kittens began crawling toward her belly to nurse. He didn't instinctively trust any creature that came armed with its own set of knives, but at least he had plenty of experience handling sharp objects.

Long minutes ticked past as Jack and Zhao Zi both peered over the edge of the cardboard box that they had settled in a shadowed corner of the room, marveling at the cat and the furry mini-chubs who had managed, despite being blind and deaf, to nose through her fur and latch onto a nipple each.

There was a rustling outside, and Jack stiffened, alarmed. They weren’t expecting visitors. He crouched over the box, his gaze darting to the window. 

Zhao Zi responded by flattening himself against the wall. He sidled carefully over to the window sill, sticking his head just far enough out for a peek into the garden. 

"Oh, it's just Ah-Fei," he said. 

Jack relaxed and sat back on his heels. 

Whatever Meng Shao Fei's business was, it seemed urgent as he marched straight to their front door and knocked up a storm. 

Li'l Chubs’s head shot up in apprehension, her ears flattened on either side. Jack drew a bloodstained towel over her and her babies, figuring that cats, like all creatures, felt safer when covered. He scrambled to his feet, but the flurry of knocks had paused, and was then followed by the sound of the front door sliding open.

"I'm coming in!" Meng Shao Fei called. 

"We're upstairs!" Zhao Zi hollered, shuffling to the top of the stairs to greet his friend, who was in such a rush he was taking them two at a time. 

Jack noticed that he’d even forgotten to take his shoes off. He’d had no idea that Meng Shao Fei was such a cat person. "Hello there, Officer Meng," he said with mild amusement.

"What's happening?" Shao Fei asked, shattering the peaceful calm of their house with his blaring voice. 

Jack mentally noted that Meng Shao Fei must be _really_ into cats, which was strange because he always had the man pegged as a dog person. He wondered idly whether Tang Yi knew, and what he might be able to leverage in exchange for that piece of information.

"Not much." Zhao Zi shrugged, taking Shao Fei’s frantic demeanor in stride and leading him into their room. 

The bed that Jack had carefully made after breakfast had been ruined by the birth—their bedclothes were tousled, their pillows were rumpled, and their sheets were stained with a criminally large splotch of drying blood. If Jack had stumbled upon this scene at any other time, he might have tried to cordon it off with police tape. 

"It's done now," said Zhao Zi, gesturing at the bed.

"It's done?"

Jack raised an eyebrow as he observed the intensity with which Officer Meng stared at their bed. He seemed inordinately upset about missing the kitten births.

"Where's the mother?" Shao Fei asked, confused.

"Jack put her in the box, along with the babies she just delivered," Zhao Zi answered simply. 

"Come see for yourself," said Jack, sweeping his arms in the direction of the cardboard box with a grandiose gesture—the cardboard box with a blood and fluid-stained towel over it. 

Shao Fei paled, a pallid shade that Jack had seen a lot in those tumultuous days when he had first gotten together with Tang Yi and gotten himself shot. Twice. 

"How did you fit...?" Shao Fei trailed off quietly. 

“She shrank after the birth,” Jack replied. “So she fit quite easily with minimal maneuvering."

Shao Fei froze. “What have you two done?” he whispered, his hands rising slowly to clutch at the sides of his head.

Jack turned to Zhao Zi and mouthed silently, "What's up with him?" 

Zhao Zi shook his head. He didn't know why Ah-Fei was acting so strange, even though the man was intense by default. The two of them stood awkwardly in their own bedroom, staring at Meng Shao Fei and wondering why he was making such a big deal about the cat box.

Without warning, Shao Fei rounded on Zhao Zi, gripping two large handfuls of his sweater and crowding him against the wall. Shao Fei’s expression twisted in anguish, while Zhao Zi’s eyes widened in surprise. 

"What the hell have you done?” Shao Fei demanded, giving Zhao Zi an emphatic shake. 

"Whoa, whoa." Jack moved faster than Shao Fei could blink, placing his body squarely between his boyfriend and Officer Meng. He placed a firm, heavy hand against Shao Fei's shoulder.

“You realize what I’ll have to do with you two now, right?” Shao Fei continued, ignoring the steel Jack had leveled in his gaze.

Jack lowered his voice, pushing back against Shao Fei’s advance. "I don't know what you think either I or Zhao Zi did," he said slowly, "but I do know what I'm going to do to you if you don't step away from him."

"Ah-Fei, let me go, you're being all weird and crazy," Zhao Zi grumbled, scowling, but Officer Meng was not to be easily swayed. 

Shao Fei took a deep breath. "Before I let you go, tell me what's in that box."

Zhao Zi blinked. "What do you think?"

"What is in the box?" Shao Fei repeated. 

Jack’s fingers clenched around Shao Fei’s shoulder in warning. This was as far as he would let him go. There was some misunderstanding going on here, and it was only this fact that kept him from breaking Shao Fei’s arm and dropping him on the spot.

Jack answered Shao Fei’s question cooly. "The neighborhood stray cat and her four newborn kittens." 

Realization dawned. Jack had never seen anybody’s emotions go from anguish to astonishment to understanding quite so clearly as they passed slowly over Officer Meng's face. 

Shao Fei quickly let Zhao Zi go, and in turn, Jack loosened his grip. Shao Fei's eyes widened and his jaw opened in a long, silent exclamation of, _"Oh!"_ He stood still as he stared into space.

Jack and Zhao Zi glanced at each other, rather unimpressed and wondering what crazy conclusion had Shao Fei jumped to this time.

Finally, Shao Fei’s shoulders sagged. He sheepishly scratched the back of his head as his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. "Oh, it's just cats. Man, everybody back at the precinct is going to feel like such an idiot."

Jack raised an eyebrow, not excepting the present company from 'everybody back at the precinct'.

"What did you think was going on?" Zhao Zi asked, folding his arms across his chest.

"Uh, nothing," Shao Fei chirped cheerily. "Let's just say that my misunderstanding has been cleared up."

"No, seriously, what did you think was in this box?" 

Jack took a step forward, backing up his boyfriend's query with some muscle. It would be best for Officer Meng’s personal well-being to cooperate with Zhao Zi’s line of questioning. 

Shao Fei looked between them with a pained expression. “A person?”

“What?!”

“How could a person even fit in that box?” Zhao Zi asked.

“Well, if some dismemberment was involved,” Shao Fei began. 

“There would be so much more blood if we’d killed a person,” said Jack brightly. “As a detective, you should definitely know that.”

“It was in the heat the moment...or something?” 

Zhao Zi sniffed with disdain. “I’m not seeing a motive here, honestly.”

“It’s complicated!” protested Shao Fei defensively.

“I think we deserve to hear how you arrived at your conclusion,” Jack said, slightly cross that Meng Shao Fei would deem him so bad at murder that he would try to dispose of the body in his own bedroom in a cardboard box. Surely, he deserved more credit than that. He had been a _professional_.

Shao Fei sighed. “The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense,” he confessed. “Everyone back at Unit Three was talking about...I don’t know, sordid affairs, a love polygon...betrayal...”

Zhao Zi rolled his eyes. “Look, I know you uncovered this whole soap opera about Tang Yi’s parents and everything, but I don’t make poor decisions like that. And neither does Jack.”

Jack smirked, delighted by Zhao Zi’s confidence in him. “Staying with this guy was the best decision I’ve ever made.” 

“Ugh,” Shao Fei groaned as Zhao Zi shot Jack a grin. 

“You are such a cheese,” Zhao Zi admonished fondly, and he and Jack wrinkled their noses at each other. 

“Anyways,” Zhao Zi continued, his smile fading as he turned back to Shao Fei. “I have no idea how you could think that we would’ve killed some lady and her baby over some stupid love affair or whatever.”

“Well, how I was supposed to know you had a pet when you said you were becoming a father?” Shao Fei shrugged as Zhao Zi continued to glare at his old friend.

Jack sighed. He’d had enough of this idiocy. “We can stand here all day,” he intervened reasonably, “debating the merits of the deductive reasoning of Unit Three, or Zhao Zi and I can do something useful, like go buy some litterboxes for our cat and her four kittens.”

Zhao Zi gasped, his expression of annoyance instantly transformed into one of hope. “We’re keeping Li’l Chubs?”

Jack smiled and nodded, his heart clenching in his chest at how brightly Zhao Zi glowed at the prospect of being a daddy to five cats.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you wondering what Li'l Chubs's name is in Chinese, it's "小胖子" (xiǎo pàng zi). I hope that tracks in Taiwanese usage as well.
> 
> As usual, this has been much improved by my betas, [Naye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naye) and [Xparrot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xparrot). Many thanks to the both of them for their time, critical thoughts, and giggling in the comments of Google Docs.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Unplanned Parenthood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21457780) by [SkuldReads (skuldchan)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuldchan/pseuds/SkuldReads)


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